Embodiment as a Paradigm for Understanding and Treating SE-AN: Locating the Self in Culture

Intuitive tracking: Blending competing approaches to exercise and eating

Under the conditions of neo-liberal individual responsibilisation, self-tracking has become the predominant model of health management. More recently, though, intuition-based approaches to exercise and eating are also gaining traction. These two approaches are often located in opposition. While self-tracking uses datafication and calculability to structure health decisions, intuitive approaches encourage abandonment of rules and restrictions around exercise and food in favour of corporeal self-awareness and attunement to sensation. Although navigating these competing approaches is a common experience for all populations, the tensions between them are felt particularly acutely by people with complex health histories, such as eating disorders (EDs). In this article, we draw on mixed-methods longitudinal data, analysed using phenomenological analysis, to propose a novel framework - 'intuitive tracking'-which moves beyond understandings of self-tracking as the antithesis of intuitive engagement with exercise and health. Drawing on longitudinal interviews and photo elicitation with 19 women who are in recovery from EDs and using weightlifting as a tool to support their recovery, we demonstrate how attentiveness to bodily and emotional cues is successfully combined with an emphasis on monitoring health behaviours to support wellbeing. We conclude that theoretical understandings of self-tracking can and should make space for intuition-led decision-making.

Exploring body uneasiness in severe and enduring eating disorders: insights from clinical practice

INTRODUCTION

Body uneasiness is a central facet of body image disturbances observed in individuals with eating disorders (EDs). This study aimed to address gaps in understanding body uneasiness in severe and enduring eating disorders (SE-EDs) and explore variations in psychopathology between individuals with different durations of the disorder. We hypothesized that patients with SE-ED might develop habitual behaviors that contribute to ambivalence toward treatment and the persistence of symptoms.

METHODS

A sample of 360 ED patients was evaluated at the beginning and end of a specialized intensive rehabilitation program. All patients completed the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) and the Body Uneasiness Test (BUT). They were divided into two groups: SE-ED (> 7 years) and acute (aED, < 3 years) duration.

RESULTS

Compulsive self-monitoring showed a significant change between the start and end of treatment, differing between groups, with a larger change observed in SE-ED (p < 0.048). In SE-ED, it was associated with lower chances of dropout (p = 0.044), opposite to aED (p = 0.009). Treatment responses were primarily related to eating psychopathology, further highlighting differences between the two groups.

CONCLUSIONS

This study underscores the possible presence of a habit in SE-ED and the importance of tailoring interventions to address unique needs based on the duration of the disorder. Furthermore, it highlights the need for further research to improve treatment outcomes in SE-EDs.

Breaking the cycle: Identifying key symptom pathways of eating disorders and the influence of childhood maltreatment

BACKGROUND

Most network analyses on central symptoms in eating disorders (EDs) have been cross-sectional. Longitudinal within-person analyses of therapy processes are scarce. Our aim was to investigate central change processes in therapy in a transdiagnostic sample, considering the influence of childhood maltreatment.

METHOD

We employed dynamic time warping analyses to identify clusters of symptoms that tended to change similarly across therapy on a within-person level. Symptoms were measured by a 28-item Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q). Furthermore, we examined the temporal direction of symptom change to identify symptoms that tended to precede and predict other symptoms. Finally, we estimated two directed, temporal networks in patients with and without a history of childhood maltreatment.

RESULTS

Our analysis included 122 ED patients (mean age = 30.9, SD = 9.7; illness duration = 14.2 years, SD = 8.9; prior treatment = 5.6 years, SD = 5.1). The initial network revealed three robust clusters of symptoms over time: (1) ED behavior, (2) inhibition, and (3) cognitions and feelings about body and weight. Overvaluation of shape had the highest out-strength preceding and predicting other symptoms. Dissatisfaction with weight preceded and predicted other symptoms in the maltreatment network. The non-maltreatment network showed a similar structure to the transdiagnostic network.

CONCLUSION

Targeting and monitoring feelings and cognitions related to shape may be crucial for achieving lasting symptom improvement in a transdiagnostic sample. Furthermore, our findings highlight the need for further investigation into the different processes driving EDs based on maltreatment status.

PUBLIC SIGNIFICANCE

There is limited understanding of the processes that occur for patients with eating disorders between admission and discharge in therapy, especially for patients with a history of childhood maltreatment. Our analyses suggest that changes in cognitions regarding shape precede and predict changes in cognitions about weight. Different processes may be driving the eating disorder according to maltreatment status, which might further illuminate the riddle of dropout and relapse in therapy for patients with a history of childhood maltreatment. These findings suggest the need for further investigation into the specific dynamics occurring during therapy for individuals with a history of childhood maltreatment.

Linguistic embodiment in typical and atypical anorexia nervosa: Evidence from an image-word matching task

OBJECTIVE

The integration of sensory, motor, and cognitive systems is embodied cognition, according to which mind and body are not separate and distinct, and our body (and our brain, as part of the body) contributes to determining our mental and cognitive processes. In spite of limited data available, Anorexia nervosa (AN) appears as a condition in which embodied cognition is altered, in particular, if we consider bodily sensations and visuospatial information processing. We aimed to evaluate the ability to correctly identify body parts and actions in both full (AN) and atypical AN (AAN), looking at the role of the underweight status.

METHOD

A group of 143 females (AN = 45, AAN = 43, unaffected women = 55) was enrolled. All participants performed a linguistic embodied task to evaluate the association between a picture-showing a bodily action-and a written verb. Additionally, a subsample of 24 AN participants performed a retest after stable weight recovery.

RESULTS

Both AN and AAN demonstrated an abnormal ability to evaluate the picture-written verb associations, especially if the involved bodily effectors were the same in both stimuli (i.e., pictorial and verbal) and needed a longer response time.

CONCLUSIONS

Specific embodied cognition linked to body schema seems to be impaired in persons with AN. The longitudinal analysis showed a difference between AN and AAN only in the underweight condition, suggesting the presence of an abnormal linguistic embodiment. More attention should be devoted to embodiment during AN treatment to improve bodily cognition, which might, in turn, diminish body misperception.

Conceptualisation of severe and enduring anorexia nervosa: a qualitative meta-synthesis

BACKGROUND

Severe and enduring anorexia nervosa (SE-AN) is amongst the most impairing of all mental illnesses. Collective uncertainties about SE-AN nosology impacts treatment refinement. Qualitative research, particularly lived experience literature, can contribute to a process of revision and enrichment of understanding the SE-AN experience and further develop treatment interventions. Poor outcomes to date, as evidenced in clinical trials and mortality for people with SE-AN (1 in 20) demonstrate the need for research that informs conceptualisations and novel treatment directions. This interpretative, meta-ethnographic meta-synthesis aimed to bridge this gap.

METHODS

A systematic search for qualitative studies that explored the AN experiences of people with a duration of greater than 3 years was undertaken. These studies included those that encompassed phenomenology, treatment experiences and recovery.

RESULTS

36 papers, comprising 382 voices of SE-AN experiences informed the meta-ethnographic findings. Four higher order constructs were generated through a synthesis of themes and participant extracts cited in the extracted papers: (1) Vulnerable sense of self (2) Intra-psychic processes (3) Global impoverishment (4) Inter-psychic temporal processes. Running across these meta-themes were three cross cutting themes (i) Treatment: help versus harm, (ii) Shifts in control (iii) Hope versus hopelessness. These meta-themes were integrated into conceptualisations of SE-AN that was experienced as a recursive process of existential self-in-relation to other and the anorexia nervosa trap.

CONCLUSIONS

The alternative conceptualisation of SE-AN proposed in this paper poses a challenge to current conceptualisations of AN and calls for treatments to engage with the complex intra and inter-psychic processes of the SE-AN, more fully. In doing so, clinicians and researchers are asked to continue to be bold in testing novel ideas that may challenge our own rigidity and attachment to dominant paradigms to best serve the individual person with SE-AN. The 'global impoverishment of self', found in this synthesis of AN experiences, should inform proposed diagnostic criteria for SE-AN.

A lived experience response to the proposed diagnosis of terminal anorexia nervosa: learning from iatrogenic harm, ambivalence and enduring hope

The ethical approach to treatment non-response and treatment refusal in severe-enduring anorexia nervosa (SE-AN) is the source of significant ethical debate, particularly given the risk of death by suicide or medical complications. A recent article proposed criteria to define when anorexia nervosa (AN) can be diagnosed as 'terminal' in order to facilitate euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (EAS), otherwise known as medical assistance in dying, for individuals who wish to be relieved of suffering and accept treatment as 'futile'. This author utilises their personal lived experience to reflect on the issues raised, including: treatment refusal, iatrogenic harm, suicidality and desire to end suffering, impact of diagnosis/prognosis, schemas, alexithymia, countertransference, ambivalence, and holding on to hope. Within debates as critical as the bioethics of involuntary treatment, end-of-life and EAS in eating disorders, it is crucial that the literature includes multiple cases and perspectives of individuals with SE-AN that represent a wide range of experiences and explores the complexity of enduring AN illness, complex beliefs, communication patterns and relational dynamics that occur in SE-AN.

What are we aiming for? Exploring tensions in healthcare provider perspectives on and communications about eating disorder recovery

Eating disorder recovery is differently understood in multi-disciplinary healthcare contexts. In this study, we sought to better understand how healthcare providers (HCPs) describe recovery and communicating about recovery. We conducted an anonymous, online, qualitative survey with 41 eating disorder HCPs. In their responses, HCPs noted that communicating about recovery was core to their practice of establishing collaboration and communication with clients, as well as enabling “realistic hope” in clinical encounters. Recovery was described as related to the concept of attaining “normalcy” in life. We identified several tensions across HCP accounts, including what “normalcy” might look like, differences in the role of diagnostic and other contextual factors in determining recovery and different perspectives on how symptom remission figures in recovery. Our findings suggest that attending to differences in communication about recovery is an important direction for eating disorders research and treatment.

An open invitation to productive conversations about feminism and the spectrum of eating disorders (part 2): Potential contributions to the science of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention

The role of feminism in eating disorders research, treatment, and advocacy continues to be debated, with little agreement in sight about the role-or lack thereof-of feminist eating disorders work. In these debates, the opportunity to open fruitful conversations about eating disorders that generate new possibilities for researching, treating, and preventing them is missed. This article is the second in a series of two papers that invite such a discussion. In this article, we focus on five key contributions that feminist eating disorder work has made and can make moving forward. These are contextualizing treatment, attending to lived experiences, expanding the meanings of "sociocultural influences," diversifying methodologies, and situating recoveries. We do not propose to offer a "final word" on feminisms and eating disorders, but instead to start conversations about how we understand, research, and treat eating disorders.

Recovering Uncertainty: Exploring Eating Disorder Recovery in Context

Attending to the shades of grey in eating disorder recovery may help to illuminate possibilities for navigating recoveries in their full complexity and diversity. There is a need for more complexity and flexibility in understandings of the timelines, processes, endpoints, and versions of eating disorder recoveries. In this article, we explore eating disorder recovery as a dynamic, intercorporeal, and non-linear process. Drawing on interviews with 20 people doing significantly better than they were during a time of acute distress around food and body, we articulate "recoveries" in relation to four themes: Fuzzy Logics of Time, Not Only Recovered, Recovery is Not All Sunshine and Rainbows, and The Life of Recovery. These themes speak to the ways in which participants struggled to articulate the temporalities of their recoveries, situated recovery as one among many events and processes that shaped their being in the world, resisted "too perfect" articulations of recovery journeys/ endpoints, and described preferred versions of and open-ended guidelines for recovery. We argue that eating disorder recoveries are as complicated and messy as lives themselves and are equally entangled in social contexts. We suggest that articulations of recovery be attuned to power dynamics as they operate in dictating which performances of eating disorders and recovery will be honoured as "legitimate" and whose pathways to recovery will be respected.

How and why does the disease progress? A qualitative investigation of the transition into long-standing anorexia nervosa

OBJECTIVE

Despite an increased interest in understanding characteristics of long-standing anorexia nervosa (AN), there is a lack of knowledge into the processes that occur with the development and maintenance of the disease. This has impeded the development of novel treatment approaches that may prove more effective than traditional medical models of therapy. To improve the prognosis of these long-standing presentations, an understanding as to how and why the AN disease progresses is required. It was therefore the aim of the current study to investigate the transition of AN from earlier to later stages.

METHOD

The study adopted a narrative inquiry approach and a total of 11 women with long-standing AN participated in an interview. The newly developed photovoice method assisted in data collection with typologies of chronic illness facilitating the emergence of salient themes.

RESULTS

The qualitative analysis resulted in the identification of five themes: (a) transition, (b) trauma, (c) functionality, (d) identity, and (e) failure of current models of treatment.

CONCLUSIONS

Together with identifying key themes, the study provides insight into some possible reasons why current treatment models are failing to promote recovery. Future research examining the effectiveness of treatment that targets underlying causes and maintaining factors of the illness are suggested. Additional education for health professionals is also recommended in order to reduce the trauma that is currently being experienced by some patients with a long-standing illness.

Lived experience perspectives on labeling and defining long-standing anorexia nervosa

OBJECTIVE

Since efforts to stage anorexia nervosa (AN) revealed the existence of various presentations, research into the long-standing subgroup has increased. A change in treatment has been proposed with the intention to use more effective evidence-based methods that target symptoms of the long-standing presentation and improve prognosis. A barrier in achieving this goal in both research and clinical contexts is the lack of a consistent label and definition. This makes the ability to assess, recruit and treat these presentations difficult. Investigations into how this subgroup may be differentiated from other stages of the disorder have included the opinions of practitioners and researchers with little consideration for the perspectives of individuals living with this illness. It was the aim of the current study to investigate lived experience perspectives on the way long-standing AN should be labeled and defined.

METHODS

Data were collected through a semi-structured interview within a narrative inquiry framework. This approach is beneficial when examining processes that occur over time, such as investigations into a long-term illness. A total of 11 women with a presentation of long-standing AN participated in an interview. Data were divided into two categories for analysis based on the association to labeling or defining the features of the long-standing AN illness.

RESULTS

Two labels emerged during the analysis with participants describing a preference for the use of 'severe and enduring' over 'chronic' when referring to their presentation of AN. When defining the illness, the most preferred criterion was illness duration with mixed perspectives for the use of previously failed treatment attempts. Participants described a consistent dislike for the use of low body weight as a feature in the defining of the illness.

CONCLUSIONS

The current study describes how individuals with a lived experience prefer to have the long-standing AN presentation labeled and defined. It is the hope of the authors that these insights will be adopted into any guidelines developed to ensure individuals most affected by this disorder have a voice and continue to be given the opportunity to contribute to topics related to their illness. Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a complex illness that has been divided into stages based on the severity of symptoms. Little is known about the AN stage that persists over lengthy periods of time with research pursuits underway to determine characteristics that allow this disorder to persevere. A barrier in researching and treating these individuals is the lack of a consistent label to refer to these presentations and criteria that will allow us to identify this stage of AN. The aim of the current study was to determine how individuals with a lived experience of long-standing AN prefer to have their illness labeled and defined. A total of 11 women who had experienced this stage of AN were interviewed with the majority of participants reporting to prefer the label 'severe and enduring' over the term 'chronic'. Additionally, most of the participants had a preference for defining their illness based on the duration of time the illness had persisted with mixed opinions for using the number of previously unsuccessful treatment attempts as criterion. The authors are hopeful that any guidelines established for labeling and defining long-standing AN will incorporate the perspectives of individuals with a lived experience of the illness.

Women, Exercise, and Eating Disorder Recovery: The Normal and the Pathological

The appropriate form, regularity, and intensity of exercise for individuals recovering from eating disorders is not agreed upon among health care professionals or researchers. When exercise is permitted, it is that which is mindful, embodied, and non-competitive that is considered normative. Using Canguilhem's concepts of "the normal and the pathological" as a theoretical frame, we examine the gendered assumptions that shape medical understandings of "healthy" and "dysfunctional" exercise in the context of recovery. The data set for this article comes from longitudinal semi-structured interviews with 19 women in the United Kingdom who engaged in weightlifting during their eating disorder recovery. We argue that women in recovery navigate multiple and conflicting value systems regarding exercise. Faced with aspects of exercise that are pathologized within the eating disorder literature (such as structure/routine, body transformations, and affect regulation), women re-inscribe positive value to these experiences, thus establishing exercise practices that serve them.